Textile Hall

Textile Hall was a large facility located at 322 W. Washington Street, Greenville, South Carolina, a large brick structure accommodating 5,000, which was the site of the biennial Southern Textile Exposition, the only national institution of the kind. Exhibits included products, machinery, and tools of the textile and allied industries. Designed by Joseph Emory Sirrine (1872-1947), a Furman graduate, the building was equipped with a large stage and was also used as a theatre, to accommodate conventions, the Southern Textile Basketball Tournaments, and the South Carolina Singing Convention each August, attended by some 10,000 people. The first event was held in 1915. Greenville celebrated the end of the Great War here on November 11, 1918. In December1924, two showings of Cecil B. DeMille's epic film, "The Ten Commandments", were mounted in the Hall, the movie overwhelming smaller cinemas of the time. Lawyer William G. Sirrine, J. E. Sirrine's older brother, served as president of Textile Hall from 1920 to 1950. (Huff, Jr., Archie Vernon, "Greenville: The History of the City and County in the South Carolina Piedmont", University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, South Carolina, 1995, Library of Congress card number 95-4363, ISBN 1-57003-045-6, pages 286, 309.) The final Southern Textile Exposition held in Textile Hall was in 1962, after which, construction began on a new exposition hall near Greenville Downtown Airport and the new US 29 By-Pass.

A Billy Graham Crusade was a rousing success at Textile Hall from March 4 to March 13, 1966. (Huff, Jr., page 412.) The original building was razed in the 1980s.